A blog following the life and times of Elder Chris Paxton, called to serve in the Idaho Boise Spanish Speaking Mission.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Sad News...

Last night we missed a call from President Cannon. We weren't able to call him until this morning, and he shared some very sad news. Elder Arrieta has received his visa to go down to Mexico. It seems like all of the times that I get a visa waiter they don't have to wait for very long before they get their visa. We have really enjoyed having his enthusiasm and his desire to work.

Here's a picture of Elder Arrieta with Elder Paxton that the office sent this week

The good news is that we did have a great week together. We upped the number of total lessons taught. And were able to set a new baptismal date.

Michael Hobbs is going to be baptized on Sunday the 11th (9/11). Hopefully there won't be any problems with it happening on the 10 year anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centers. We were able to teach (review) him all the things he needs to know before baptism. His parents have done a very good job of helping him along the way. He has already read the Book of Mormon through twice, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the New Testament. I think he gets the prize for being ready the most before baptism. He is really excited to get baptized and can't wait to be a member of the church.

On Sunday we didn't have any investigators come to our branch (Angel went to the branch in Kuna), but we did have a Spanish speaking member bring a friend to our branch. She said that she wants to come to church more, and also have us over to teach her. We have an appointment to go by around 2 tomorrow and hopefully all goes well and that we can baptize her very soon. We have high hopes for her though.

Last Wednesday we had a really fun service opportunity. We go to cut down a very large tree, using nothing but a hand saw and a machete. Elders aren't allowed to use power tools, so the chain saw was out of the question. The good thing is that it was a tree with a really short trunk and we just cut all of the branches off. The biggest cut was probably about 8-12 inches. We had a lot of fun and worked really hard.

Thankfully nothing was damaged due to falling branches or the wild swinging of the machete. It was a great help to the family, because one branch had fallen from some really strong winds, and it was sitting on top of her fence and was starting to break it. So with little damage to the fence the whole problem was taken care of. I really enjoy doing service, especially when we get to do some physical work.

Well that is pretty much everything that is going on here. Elder Acuña and I are planning on working hard, even after Elder Arrieta is taken from us.